


Baby It's Cold Outside

by bookworm213



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Blizzards & Snowstorms, Comfort, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Sharing Body Heat, Snowed In, Winter, cuddling for warmth, russian winter, super soldier body-heat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 13:01:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13341774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookworm213/pseuds/bookworm213
Summary: They can't make a fire. There's a blizzard raging outside. Turns out Super-Soldier body-heat comes in pretty handy in this situation.Buckynat Secret Santa gift for one_of_those_crushing_scenes.





	Baby It's Cold Outside

**Author's Note:**

  * For [one_of_those_crushing_scenes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/one_of_those_crushing_scenes/gifts).



> Hope you enjoy! :)

Natasha blamed Coulson for giving them the wrong coordinates. Why else would she and James be stuck waiting for extraction in the middle of a Russian winter storm? And of course, since the relentless snowfall made flying and detection difficult, they had to wait until morning for the extraction team to find them. So she and James had to freeze their asses off until the snow stopped. Perfect.

Beside her, James looked just as unhappy as he shifted his backpack to his other shoulder. They both had overnight bags with food and water for just this situation, but managing the cold was another thing entirely. 

Most people assumed that Natasha and James liked the cold. The Black Widow and the Winter Soldier, forged and trained in the Russian winter. They expected these legends to not even feel the cold, to feel at home in it. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Natasha hated the cold. It dredged up memories of brutal training in the snow wearing a tank top and shorts. Or of watching her fellow Red Room classmates freeze to death in the Siberian tundra. For James, it reminded him of being shoved into the cryo machine, the endless years spend frozen in time. Two weapons forged in winter, and they hated the cold.

“There’s a cabin about a mile away, we should try to camp there.” The tip of James’s nose and cheeks were bright red. They were both dressed in heavy jackets, and under that layers of tactical gear and protective clothes. But the biting wind still crept through, and Natasha felt a shiver creep up her spine. 

“Coulson’s a dead man,” she muttered, and James’s lips quirked up a bit. 

The cabin, after they had trekked over several hills covered in several feet of show, turned out to be an abandoned, creaky building that clearly hadn’t been lived in for some time. The paint was old and peeling, and cracks in the widow glass allowed the frigid air to whistle through. The worst aspect was that a hole had appeared in the ceiling, sending all the snowfall into a huge pile on the floor. Natasha scanned the pitiful sight, scowling. It was going to be a long night.

“We should make a fire,” James said, moving over to the corner where a ragged sofa was still standing.

In the corner, James had cleared the snow out and laid out some firewood they had found at the entrance. They had both learned how to build fires: it was necessary during their training that they knew how to survive in harsh environments. James carefully laid some kindling against a few of the larger logs, and took out the set of matches he had in his emergency kit. But the wood had been soaked through by the snow, making it nearly impossible to burn. As soon as the fire touched the wood, the flame would extinguish as though being suffocated by the freezing and wet tinder. 

After three trys, it was clear there wasn’t going to be a fire. James cursed as he flung down the firewood in disgust. “Maybe we should scout ahead, try to find somewhere better to sleep.”

Natasha shook her head, pointing to the raging storm outside. “The snow’s coming down so thick we can’t see five feet in front of us. We’d be lost in minutes. The best thing to do is stay put until the storm stops and the extraction team comes.” But she didn’t like that idea herself. Even with the layers of clothing she wore, she was shivering. A few hours of this, with the temperatures, and hypothermia was sure to set in. They could only hope that the snow would let up soon, and the extraction team could come or it could be safer for her and James to find somewhere warmer. 

There were some old dishrags abandoned in one of the kitchen cupboards. Natasha started suing them to patch in some of the holes in the walls, stopping the wind from whistling through the structure. Even with this, it was still bone-chillingly cold. Natasha wrapped her arms around herself, shivering violently, her teeth chattering, while James looked at her worriedly from across the room. 

Then Natasha noticed something. James wasn’t shivering. At all. He wasn’t wrapping his arms around himself for warmth. He looked . . fine.

“James?” Natasha looked at him curiously, one eyebrow raised. “Are you . . . cold? At all?”

James shrugged. “A little, but I’m alright. I’m more worried about you-“

“But how . . . ?” Natasha went over to him and placed her hand against his chest. To her amazement, heat was radiating off of him. His body felt like a raging furnace compared to the frigid temperatures in the rest of the cabin.

James gave her a half-smirk. “Super-soldier body heat. Comes in pretty handy in situations like this, but what are we gonna do about-“

But Natasha was already pushing him towards the ratty couch. “This is what we’re gonna do about it,” Natasha said with a laugh. As soon as James was seated Natasha wasted no time wrapping herself as tightly around him as she could, her head buried in his neck and her legs wrapped around his waist. In any other setting and time, this position would have been playful and definitely sexual, but right now nothing mattered more to Natasha than soaking up James’s body heat. The heat coming off of him was nearly palpable in the frigid air. It warmed Natasha’s frozen hands and arms, and she pressed into him lighter, eagerly drinking it in.

James laughed, the sound muffled by her hair smooshing over his mouth. “So I guess this is how we’re spending the night, right? How romantic.”

“Hush you.” Natasha smirked, tilting her head up to kiss his cheek. “It’s better than me dying of hypothermia. Who knew super-soldier body heat would come in handy this much?”

He snorted, then wrapped his arms around Natasha’s waist. The storm still howled outside, but Natasha’s body was slowly thawing, and the added comfort of James’s body against her’s was a balm on her worried nerves. 

“I still hate the cold,” James murmured against her neck. “Reminds me of the cryo. I don’t know why, but the body heat had no effect in there. I would lie there for years, decades, and the cold wouldn’t stop. Even when I was asleep it was still there.” Although she could still feel his heat, Natasha felt James shiver under her skin.

She threaded her fingers through his hair, they way she knew he liked it, and pressed her lips to his neck. She didn’t need to talk to convey what she meant. The two of them could quell each other’s fears and demons with simple words, gestures, and movements. In this moment, even in the harsh conditions, the two of them were at peace. 

Natasha’s body was fully thawed by now. James’s heat still radiated through her, and after awhile she drifted off into sleep. When she woke, the sun’s rays peeked brightly through the cracks in the walls and ceiling. James was snoring lightly, his head resting on the top of hers. 

Her phone buzzed, and she glanced at it, confirming what she already figured: the extraction team had finally made it through and were waiting about a mile out.

“Wake up, mili moi.” She nudged James, who opened his eyes with a yawn. After they had both gotten up, checked their gear, and eaten breakfast consisting of a protein bar, they both walked to the doorway of the dilapidated cabin. 

James frowned as he took in the piles of fresh snow and the wind that still whistled through the trees. “Couldn’t they have parked anywhere closer?”

Natasha laughed and wrapped her arms around him, planting a kiss on his cheek. “It’s fine. I have you to keep me warm, don’t I?”


End file.
